How export to Flash works

You can export your Encore project either for local use (all files present locally) or to a webserver (video files present on streaming server).

In both cases, you specify the folder in which the output is stored. Encore creates the following files and a folder that contains the generated output:

flashdvd.swf

The SWF file enables the browsers or Flash players to play the video content that you upload to a server. The flashdvd.swf file does not contain the actual video—it is, instead, a front end for the generated video output. The flashdvd.swf file reads the AuthoredContent.xml file and plays the Flash output accordingly and remains static even when your video has changed.

AuthoredContent.xml

This XML file contains the information about the video output files such as filenames, association of videos with menus, and navigation. You update this XML file when your video files or the menu structure change. If you choose to upload your Flash output to a server, the URLs of the videos are updated in this file.

index.html

The HTML file that hosts the flashdvd.swf file. This file gathers the required information about the first play setting and menu structure from the AuthoredContent.xml file.

Sources folder

This folder contains the Flash videos and the menu images and icons. The Flash video files are either FLV or F4V format, based on your choice.

If you are publishing the video directly to the web server, Encore updates the AuthoredContent.xml file with the URLs for the assets received from the server. In this process, all video files (FLV and F4V) are uploaded to the server.

If you do not have access to a server, choose the Keep With Flash SWF option in Encore’s Build panel. The FlashDVD content is saved in the specified destination folder. Because your video now resides in the local or a shared network folder, the AuthoredContent.xml file contains the relative path to the Sources folder.

Typically, you host the video files on a Streaming server and host the other output files (Sources,AuthoredContent.xml,Theme.xml, index.html) on a web server.

You can choose one from the fifteen export quality presets that provide you five frame sizes, each with three quality presets: Low, Medium, and High quality. Of the five frame sizes, two are standard size and the remaining are widescreen formats. In Addition to system presets, now you can create custom presets of different frame sizes with different quality settings from Edit Quality Presets from Build panel. For a video tutorial on exporting your project to Flash, see http://tv.adobe.com/watch/adobe-evangelists-jason-levine/authoring-a-flash-based-dvd-for-the-web/.

Export your current project to
Flash

Choose Window > Build. If you haven’t checked your project for broken links or specified the First Play setting, click Check Project in the Build panel. (See Check a project.)

In
the Build panel, choose Flash from the Format menu. The settings
Output: Flash (.swf) and Source: Current Project are automatically
selected.

Specify the destination for the exported Flash video files
by typing the location file path or clicking Browse to enter the
location.

Under Settings,
type a name for the project folder and choose the file format from
the Format menu.

Select the preset from the list.

Note: The choice of quality preset doesn’t significantly affect the build time. Select the preset that suits your intended use of the Flash output. Use small frame size and low resolution presets to output the smallest version of the project for e-mail. Use large frame size and high quality presets for delivering content across faster networks at broadband data rates or on a local area network (LAN). Reserve the largest frame size and high quality presets for playback from a local computer, or a dedicated data server or shared hard drive.

Select Do Not Export Images for Text Subtitles if you want
Encore to export text subtitles only in the text format. If you
do not select this option, Encore exports subtitles as both images
and text.

The images are usually used for text display, and
the text is used for searching the subtitles. When you export subtitles
as text only, the text is used to display subitles too.

When
you export subtitles as text, any properties that you have set for
the text are lost. Customize the Subtitle tag in the Theme.xml file
to set the properties for the text subtitles at runtime.

<Subtitle>
<Font name='Tahoma' size='18' color='0xFFFFFF' bold='false' italic='false' underline='false' bullet='false' align='center'/> <!--If font is not available in system it will fall back to "Times New Roman" on windows and "Times" on Mac OS X -->
</Subtitle>

Select
the HTML template. Do one of the following:

Select the
template from the list of available templates.

Click Import Template to import the template that you want
to use.

To delete a template, select the template from the list of
available templates and click Delete Template. You can delete only
those templates that you have created.

To preview the template, select the template from the list
of available templates and click Preview Template.

Select the type of Flash media delivery from one of the following options:

Keep with Flash SWF

The Flash video file is downloaded progressively to the viewer’s computer and played at the same time. The downloaded Flash video file remains in the user’s computer. Content of an FLV or F4V file exported from Encore can buffer a portion of the currently playing FLV or F4V file. The buffering helps in smoother playback when the bandwidth is low.

Upload to Server

The Flash video file is played on the user’s computer from the server.

Server

If you selected Upload To Server, select the server where you want to upload the file.

Click Build.

The output of the build is a folder with
FlashDVD content. You can post this folder on your web server for
accessing over the Internet, or you can open the index.html file
in a browser to play the media.

If your login is successful,
Encore uploads the video files (FLV or F4V files) in the Sources
folder to the server. The AuthoredContent.xml file stays in the
Destination folder.

Note:

Adobe recommends posting Flash output to a webserver. Security
settings on some local machines can prevent playing the video in
these machines.

Embed web links in your Flash project

You can use a menu element to
create a link from Flash output to an external URL on the web. When
viewers click a button that goes to that menu element, instead of
seeing a menu display, they see the web page of the specified URL.

Note:

Unless you set up privileges in Flash Player, the URL must
be in the same domain as your Flash project.

Do one of the following:

Select a button in a menu and select Enable Weblink For Flash, and then enter a URL.

Select the new menu (in the Project panel or the Menus panel), and in the Properties panel, Enter URL as http:// www.adobe.com where www.adobe.com is your URL.

The button can also link to an object such as a timeline, slide show, menu, or a playlist. This link is used when you export your project to DVD and Blu‑ray. You can ignore the button link when “Enable Weblink for Flash” is selected and the URL is provided.

Enables you to have a quick preview of the video. With each click, the video skips 5 seconds, and resumes playback from the new location.

Play/Pause

Toggle this button to play or pause the movie.

Progress bar

Lets you “seek” through the length of the video. You can drag the seek bar to move across the frames in the video. When a movie is searched, red bars appear in the progress bar corresponding to scenes containing the search terms.

Elapsed time/Total time

Displays the duration for which the video has played, and the total time.

Search

Helps you search the contents of the movie being played.

Title

Displays the title of the movie.

Last menu

Displays the menu that you visited previously.

Pop Up Menu

Displays the menu of the movie. Clicking the button again stops the menu display. Creating pop-up menus for Flash DVD is the same as that for blu-ray discs.

Subtitles

Displays subtitles on the screen. Click Subtitles, and select from the languages available in the menu. Click Off to turn stop subtitle display.

Note: The options last set for subtitles are used when you play the movie again. When you play a movie for the first time, the subtitles in the first track are used.

Mute

Toggle this button to mute/unmute a phone.

Volume

Use this control to increase or decrease the volume of audio in the movie being played.

Full Screen

Displays the movie in the full screen mode. Users must press Escape to exit this mode. All controls are available in the full screen mode, and fade away when the screen is left inactive for some time.

Keyboard shortcuts for Flash DVD
player

Action

Keyboard shortcut

Play/Pause

Spacebar

Previous chapter

P

Next chapter

N

Step forward

Ctrl + Right Arrow

Step backward

Ctrl + Left Arrow

Search

Ctrl+F

Title

Home

Last menu

Backspace

Subtitle

Ctrl + S (Mac), Ctrl+Shift+S (Windows)

Volume

+/-

Full screen

F/Esc

Mute

M (toggle)

Customize appearance of playback
controls

When you build an Encore project in Flash, a Theme.XML file is created at the location of the build. Configure the contents of the file to customize the appearance of playback controls in the Flash DVD display. The process for customizing the controls is available within the file itself. For example, you can customize the properties of the search bar using the SearchBar tag.

Search content in Flash DVD

You can search for the following types of content when playing a movie in the Flash DVD player:

Subtitles

You can search subtitles in timelines, slideshows, playlists, and chapter playlists.

Note: Only subtitles containing text are searched. FAB image subtitles do not generate a text output, and so, cannot be searched.

Speech transcripts

Search text in speech transcript metadata of clips in a Timeline.

Note: Speech Transcript for a clip can be generated from Premiere Pro using its Speech- to- Text metadata feature.

Names of menu buttons as set in the property panel

The search generates a list of scenes and menus containing the search terms. When you click a scene or menu in the list, the movie starts playing from that scene or menu.

Search field in the Flash DVD player in the browser

A.
Search results B.
Progress
bar with results C.
Search field

Red and blue lines appear in the progress bar at places corresponding to the search results in the list when the movie plays. Red lines indicate search results from speech transcripts, and blue lines, from subtitles. Click a line in the progress bar to start playing a movie from that scene or menu.

Build an Encore project in Flash. The project can contain menus with buttons, timelines containing clips with transcript metadata, subtitles, or slide shows.

Open the generated HTML file in a browser.

Click the Search button in the SWF movie player controls.

In the Search field, enter the text that you want to search.

Press Enter. A list of scenes and menus containing content matching the search terms is displayed.

Do one of the following:

Click a scene in the list. The movie starts playing from that scene.

Click a red or blue line in the progress bar to play the movie from that scene. The lines in the progress bar appear only when the movie plays in the browser.

To play successive scenes in the list, click Next. To play previous scenes in the movie, click Previous.

To clear the search list and the red lines in the progress bar, click the Clear (X) button in the search field.

Note:

Click the heading row of the column to sort the column.

Subtitles in Flash DVD

When you build an Encore project in Flash format, the subtitles
in the project are also exported. The Flash DVD player searches
Subtitles that are in the text format. Image subtitles are not searched.

Use HTML templates

You can add backgrounds to Flash export using templates. For example, rather than playing against a standard black background, your project plays in a frame or against a background image that reflects the motif of menus or chapter icons. You can create HTML templates and then import them to your project.

You can create your own templates and import them into Encore. A template consists of a folder containing an index.html file as well as other content referenced by index.html. Your index.html can contain HTML tags in addition to tags supported by Encore. When you export your project to Flash format, these tags are replaced with SWF content, and the video is placed at the location of the tag in the HTML file. Encore looks for the following supported tags in the template index.html file and replaces them with the appropriate value or code:

<encoreswftitle>

<encoreswfobject>

<encoreswfwidth>

<encoreswfheight>

Note:

<encoreswfobject> is the mandatory tag. Others are optional.

Create an HTML template

Create a folder on your desktop or in another
location. Encore retains the name you give the folder for the template.

Create an HTML page in which you want to embed the SWF file.
Name this HTML page index.html (index.html must have <encoreswfobject>
tag).

Place the index.html file along with any other content it
uses into the folder you created.

Set up a local FMS server

You can set up a local Flash Media Server by modifying the script for local FMS server or writing a new script for adding a new CDN. When you set up a local Flash Media Server, ensure that you have the latest version of the Flash Media Server (3.0.2 or later).

Edit the script Sample Script.jsx at \Adobe Encore CS6\Required\FlashExportScripts with the following details:

streamingSiteURL—Enter the FMS server name.

ftpURL—Enter the FTP server name that you use to connect to the FMS server.

Add a streaming server

Write a script using the template provided (template.jsxx).
Change its extension to .jsx. You can also rename the script file.
You can use this template to add any Flash Media Streaming server
in the future.

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